Dallas is still bleeding. And no one knows how or when the wound of losing Luka Doncic will be healed. His triple-double against the Mavs looked like a harsh reminder of what they lost. But Luka is on one end of the stick, the other end has Anthony Davis. And the shock was no less for him. Davis was in his home in LA on that fateful night when the rest of the Lakers squad were up against the Knicks in New York.

Lakers won the game and Davis texted his teammates, congratulating them. An hour later his phone rang. It was the Lakers vice president of basketball operations, Rob Pelinka, on the other side. He informed Davis about the trade. Utterly shocked, the first thing Davis did was to FaceTime his running mate for five and a half years, LeBron James, who was at the dinner table with his family. His reaction was no different from the rest of the NBA world.

“The first time I heard it, I thought it was for sure fake. I thought it was a hoax. People messing around or whatever. But AD FaceTimed me, and I talked to him for quite a while. Even when I got off the phone with him, it still didn’t seem real,” James had later said. But being one of the most veteran players of the And he showed that in his first game with the Mavs in a hostile Dallas, who had just lost a generational talent that carried them to the NBA finals in the last season.

When the Mavericks prepared to play their first home game since the trade on February 8, the fans had planned a protest. Davis knew, but his focus was playing up to his standards. So he did. Davis dominated from the get-go, scoring 26 points to go with 16 rebounds and multiple blocks in his 31 minutes of play. At one point during the first quarter, Davis turned to the crowd and yelled, “I’m here!” during a timeout. The fans gave him a standing ovation. After the Mavs’ 107-99 loss to the Lakers, Davis reflected on how he perceives the difficult situation and came up with some soothing words that Dallas very much needs right now.

“I just wanted to be a guy that they can rely on, a guy that’s gonna bring energy and kind of reassure them like, ‘Yeah, I understand who we got rid of,’ but also want to give the fans hope, and I think I did that,” Davis told the LA Times. Sadly, the night ended with Davis suffering an abductor injury. And although on the sidelines now, The Brow knows once he returns just what the Mavericks are capable of.

“Obviously the unfortunate injury, but in that time that they saw me they realized how good we can be when we’re fully healthy. We’re gonna get back to that. So, there’s a lot of emotions involved just from the Dallas standpoint of me wanting to show the team why Nico did what he did,” Davis added.

And well it’s not just Anthony Davis who is injured. The Mavericks are lacking their entire center rotation with Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II also suffering ailments. They are all set to spend time recovering for a few more weeks. However, Davis will be the quickest to return and arguably the most important component for Dallas.

In their absence, Kyrie Irving has been going ballistic. But having Davis’ compact presence with him gives the Mavericks a fascinating dynamic. AD can serve as a dominant center while also being the focal point of an offense. His health will remain a concern, but the 10-time All-Star suffered a major injury after a long spell of staying healthy. Once he returns, things should revert back to normal for the Mavericks. But until then, fans won’t stop taking a go at Nico Harrison and some have gone too far with it.

Things are getting out of hand for Nico Harrison and his family

Ever since trading Luka, Nico Harrison has emerged as a villainous presence in the Dallas community. Fans have scrutinized him whenever he is at the American Airlines Center. Things have reached up to an extent where Harrison reportedly needed to buff up security at his house as death threats plummeted over his loved ones.

Moreover, he isn’t the only one affected. According to Chandler Parsons, one of his daughters is suffering from a form of bullying at her high school. “He had to have known there’s gonna be backlash. You don’t just trade a Luka out of nowhere, but did he imagine that he’d need to beef up his security and his daughter is gonna get bullied apparently at school? There’s all these different stories coming out like that,” the former Mavericks star revealed on Run It Back.

The backlash over Harrison might have some justification. However, fans going after his family, who have nothing to do with it, was branded as unjust and unacceptable by many. Former Lakers star Lou Williams urged the Dallas fans to stop the hate against Nico’s daughter on The Run It Back podcast, “Leave that young lady alone. She had nothing to do with that.”

Looks like it is now on Anthony Davis to turn the tide. Good thing is that in the one game he did participate in, the Mavericks looked formidable. Davis himself has also got a point to prove. Many fans blasted the Mavs for trading a star in his prime for an aging Davis who also has injury history. Mark Cuban went up to the extent of comparing the trade to replace Windows 11 for Windows 10! Davis knows well, there is only one thing that can put a stop to all these- a shot at the title.